Super Bowl LVII traffic: DNS data tells who the game’s real winners were
Super Bowl LVII once again proved that the Internet and the big game are deeply intertwined. Cloudflare Radar tracked DNS name resolution data from its 1.1.1.1 resolver in US data centers to estimate website interest during the event, covering advertisers, team websites, and several service categories. While DNS data can’t reveal who visited a site or what they did there, it offers a reliable proxy for the public’s digital attention throughout the evening.
Nationally, US Internet traffic dropped to roughly 5% below the previous Sunday’s levels at kickoff. The most pronounced dips came during Rihanna’s halftime show, with Pennsylvania and New York seeing the largest declines — while messaging and video platforms saw a surge in activity immediately after her performance ended.
Advertisers measure up: URL-less spots still moved traffic
A notable shift in this year’s Super Bowl advertising was the absence of URLs in many commercials — a departure from previous years. Only a handful of brands, including Toyota, Michelob Ultra, and Mr. Peanut, included QR codes in their spots, seemingly building on the success of Coinbase’s QR code ad from Super Bowl LVI. Several ads also pushed app-store downloads rather than directing viewers to websites.
DNS traffic growth for the advertised brands below is plotted against a baseline set as the mean request volume for their domains between 12:00 and 15:00 EST on Sunday, February 12. Among the brands that did drive measurable traffic, the ad for Blue Moon stood out.
Although the commercial appeared at first to be for Coors Light and Miller Lite, the final reveal — fittingly, given Blue Moon is often served with an orange twist — was for the Belgian witbier. The ad drove an extraordinary 76,400% increase in DNS traffic to Blue Moon’s site over baseline. Coors Light saw a 275% bump and Miller Lite grew 120%, though both were volatile at other points during the game.
A cryptocurrency presence was mostly absent this year, with one exception: LimitBreak, a Web3 gaming venture, ran a commercial promoting a giveaway of its Dragon series NFTs, using both a QR code and a URL. The call to action worked, with the company’s website recording an increase of nearly 54,000% in DNS traffic.
Temu, the mobile shopping app, purchased multiple slots during the game for its “shop like a billionaire” campaign. Each airing produced a distinct traffic response. The first at 19:16 EST drove a 222% spike over baseline, but a second at 21:12 EST generated more substantial interest — a 475% increase. Subsequent airings at 22:20 EST and just after still delivered gains of 169% and over 200%, respectively.
The commercial featuring Ben Affleck for Dunkin’ produced an unintended spike. Local Boston-area media had speculated about Affleck’s involvement after he was spotted working at a Dunkin’ drive-through in Medford in early January. When the spot aired at 18:53 EST, DNS traffic for dunkin.com — the domain for DunkinWorks, a small personal coaching business — jumped 8,000% above baseline. The ad did not air again nationally, so the causes behind three later spikes in dunkin.com traffic remain unclear.
Team websites and sports traffic follow touchdowns and triumph
As in past years, touchdowns and ultimately victory drove website interest. Both the Kansas City Chiefs’ and Philadelphia Eagles’ sites saw traffic surge relative to the same 12:00–15:00 EST baseline, with the Eagles’ site peaking at 828% growth just around kickoff at 18:30 EST. The Eagles’ site continued growing more quickly than the Chiefs’ until 20:55 EST, when traffic to chiefs.com began to pull ahead — the moment of the Chiefs’ third touchdown of the night, giving that site a 514% spike over baseline.
A further Chiefs touchdown at 21:42 EST generated a 454% jump, but the biggest surge came with the game’s conclusion. At 22:15 EST, traffic to the Chiefs’ website was 871% higher than baseline, peaking ten minutes later at 890%. Traffic to the Eagles’ site dropped off sharply at the same time, underscoring that victory, more than any single play, is the primary driver of web traffic for participating teams.
Sports website traffic generally tracked on-field events, starting with a spike to roughly 90% above baseline at kickoff, followed by a rise to 120% during the Chiefs’ first touchdown at 19:00 EST. Additional bumps came with the Chiefs’ two other touchdowns at 21:30 and 21:40 EST. The evening’s peak for these sites — 145% above baseline — arrived at 22:00 EST, during the final break before the Chiefs’ game-winning field goal, with another 134% spike following the game’s end.
Halftime and its aftershocks: messaging, social, and video traffic
Rihanna’s halftime performance, and the news emerging from it, left clear marks across several service categories. Messaging sites saw their first notable increase right after the show at around 20:45 EST — 22% over baseline. The largest jump occurred with the final whistle at 22:15 EST, when messaging traffic registered 30% above the earlier baseline.
Social media platforms experienced a small uptick at the start of halftime, a clear drop during the performance, and then a rebound from 6% below baseline back to 0% immediately afterward — as viewers reacted to the show and Rihanna’s announcement of her second pregnancy. An additional 3% growth was reached during the 22:00 EST break, with another short-lived 2% lift at game’s end.
Halftime also drove activity on video platforms, whose traffic peaked at 13% above baseline at 20:25 EST — right around the point viewers began exploring content during or after the show. A slightly larger peak also occurred before the game at 18:00 EST, with video site traffic reaching 12% over baseline.
Game-time habits: food delivery had its moment, betting had its rush
Food delivery websites were already quiet by kickoff — traffic at that moment was 19% below baseline, reflecting that orders were likely placed and scheduled earlier in the afternoon. A clear spike arrived during the first break and just after the Chiefs’ first touchdown at 18:55 EST. After trending down again through much of the game, there was a modest increase once the final whistle blew.
Sports betting sites had their biggest day yet, with many more states having legalized gambling since the last Super Bowl. Their traffic peaked at 295% above baseline at 19:00 EST, coincident with the Chiefs’ first touchdown, while the Eagles’ first score just minutes earlier produced a 233% spike. The lowest point for betting sites was during the halftime show. In the game’s second half, DNS traffic rose again with the Chiefs’ go-ahead touchdown at 20:55 EST (167%), followed by a jump to 278% over baseline when the contest ended.
Halftime and high-stakes football move the needle
The Super Bowl is as much a television event as a sporting one, and the traffic data from game day reflects that. The most pronounced nationwide dip occurred between 20:30 and 20:50 EST, coinciding with Rihanna’s halftime performance — her first live show since January 2018. Across both conference cities, traffic fell sharply during that window and recovered almost immediately once the performance concluded, suggesting viewers set aside their devices to watch.
Looking closer at the two home markets, Philadelphia and Kansas City show different game-day patterns. Kansas City traffic on Super Bowl Sunday started similar to the prior week but dropped 84% below the previous Sunday’s levels by kickoff. The lowest point came at 22:13 EST, when the Chiefs kicked the game-winning field goal, with a pronounced traffic decline as attention shifted entirely to the outcome.
Philadelphia’s traffic declined more gradually throughout the evening on Super Bowl Sunday, starting slightly below the prior week and reaching nearly 50% lower at kickoff. A visible dip occurred at 18:52 EST, less than ten minutes into the game, when the Eagles scored their first touchdown. Further drops tracked their other three scores, though these were less distinct against the noisy baseline. Traffic bottomed out near the end of the game as the Eagles’ loss became apparent.
State-level patterns: hosts and contenders
State-level data adds another layer. Arizona, hosting the game at State Farm Stadium, saw traffic decline from around 13:00 EST, with levels 25% lower than the previous Sunday at kickoff. Rihanna’s show had an even bigger effect: at 20:30 EST, Arizona traffic was 29% below the prior Sunday’s same-time reading. Traffic normalized around 23:30 EST after the game ended.
Pennsylvania followed a similar arc. Traffic began dipping after 15:00 EST and hit 28% below the previous Sunday at kickoff. The largest gap, 33%, occurred during the halftime show. In Missouri, home of the Chiefs, traffic was actually above the prior Sunday before 17:00 EST, then dropped 28% at kickoff. It rose slightly before halftime, fell 30% during Rihanna’s performance, and reached its lowest point — 33% below the previous Sunday — at 22:15 EST during the winning field goal. By 22:50 EST, Missouri traffic had rebounded to above the prior week’s levels.
Across the most populous states, the halftime dip was consistent. New York saw a 30% decrease during the show, while California dropped 24%. Texas and Florida each saw 21% declines. Pennsylvania led with 33%, and Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan posted drops of 23%, 27%, 22%, 25%, and 22%, respectively.
Spam and phishing follow the event calendar
Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security also examined email subject lines in the weeks before Super Bowl LVII, categorizing malicious, suspicious, and spam messages across four themes: Super Bowl/football, sports gambling, sports media/websites, and food delivery.
Early in the post-season, football-themed threat volume was low, but campaigns escalated sharply. Message counts grew sevenfold between January 23–29, then nearly sixfold again the following week as the Chiefs and Eagles secured their spots. These campaigns ended abruptly in the final week before the game, with volume dropping by nearly 90%.
Sports gambling-themed emails stayed relatively low throughout the observation period, despite expanding legalization in many states. The highest counts came in early January, with a secondary peak in the weeks before the conference championships and the Super Bowl, when volume rose to roughly 2.5 times the prior weeks’ levels.
Sports media and website-themed threats remained minimal all year, peaking during the week of January 23–29. Food delivery-themed messages had the highest volume of any category, with peaks during the weeks of January 2–8 and January 30–February 5, each followed by declines of more than 50%.
These patterns reinforce a familiar conclusion: major live events — particularly the Super Bowl and its halftime show — measurably alter Internet traffic. Whether the cause is a game-winning field goal, a long-awaited performance, or a craving for game-day snacks, human attention remains the strongest driver of network activity.
